


Can't Sleep

by Sybariticfanfiction (SybariticReyna)



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: (no real hurt), Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Comfort No Hurt, F/F, Fluff, Insomnia, Multiple Timelines mentioned, Nightmares, Polyamory, They love each other a lot okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 12:31:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12911982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SybariticReyna/pseuds/Sybariticfanfiction
Summary: Chloe and Rachel are both regularly get insomnia and Max gets nightmares but they figure it out together





	Can't Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> love is strange is such a good fanmade game i LOVE everything abt it 
> 
> so im gay and cant sleep so i wrote about gays who cant sleep

Chloe and Rachel both frequently get bouts of insomnia, but Rachel is lucky enough that weed makes her sleepy, while Chloe lays awake for hours. Max is curled up in the middle of them (she’s the smallest, and the most in need of cuddling usually), asleep for the most part. The fairy lights Max uses on her picture wall are still on, coating the room in a soft blue.   
  
Chloe watches Max’s eyes move, violent and quick. Another nightmare, probably. She doesn’t know if she should wake her or not. Sometimes Max is fine in the morning, the nightmares completely forgotten. And sometimes she wakes up crying for her girlfriends, bits and pieces of timelines long since abandoned spilling out of her mouth.   
  
Other times, like today apparently, she wakes up all at once, her hands jerking away from Rachel. One she raises, curled in that familiar way that means she’s going to go back and the other clutching her mouth.   
  
Chloe grabs the one before she can use her powers, “Max, Max, its okay, sh.”       
  
She’s shaking like a leaf and--   
  
One moment Chloe is wondering what to do and the next Max is already up.   
  
Chloe flinches back. “God da--” Max is wide eyed terrified, looking at Chloe like she might disappear right in front of her eyes. _Fuck._ Chloe knows what that means. “Max, hey, chill you’re okay, you’re okay,” She wraps one arm around her shoulders and one around her middle, pulling Max sideways into her lap (and its weird how unyielding Max “the cuddle monster” Caulfield is, but she’ll thaw. She always does).   
  
Max twists in place, moving until she can be with Chloe and still keep her eyes on Rachel. “I thought I-- it was the Dark Room and we were looking at pictures. Of Rachel.” She says in a blur, her words barely distinguishable as such. She stretches her legs out, pressing her novelty sock clad foot against Rachel’s hip.   
  
Chloe leans her cheek against Max’s head, “Rachel is fine, Max. She’s so fine she’ll probably make you pancakes in the morning. You saved her, remember?”   
  
Max takes a breath so deep Chloe can feel it in her own lungs. “Did I?”   
  
“Of course you did! You totally kicked ass, babe!” Chloe whisper yells. She wants to smother Max in praise and kisses until she believes, but for now she settles for holding her a little bit tighter.   
  
Rachel makes a quiet noise, twisting onto her stomach.   
  
Max’s sigh of relief is shakier than it has any right to be.   
  
“See? She’s perfectly alright.” Chloe says, thumbing Max’s bare stomach. Her shirt must’ve ridden up at some point. Chloe’s certainly not complaining. She likes how warm Max is and how her stretch marks feel (although Max _hates them_ herself). Rachel doesn’t have any stretch marks, either because she never had a sudden enough growth spurt or because her skin is just very elastic the world may never know. Chloe’s are little and many.   
  
Max drags her eyes away from Rachel for a moment to lean up and kiss Chloe’s cheek (and her breath honest to god still smells minty fresh, which Chloe finds hilarious and endearing. Hilariously endearing?).   
  
“I love her.” Max says, quiet and reverent. “And I love you _so much_ it hurts, Chloe.”   
  
Chloe ribs feel too small for the affection in her body as she hugs her girlfriend closer. “Max, that’s like, so fucking gay.” She laughs. “I love you too, you huge nerd.”   
  
Chloe sees movement out of the corner of her eyes and she flinches ( _there’s a needle in her neck and she can feel it burn before its lights out and oh god Max, where’s Max, I already lost Rachel, where is Max_ ).   
  
She looks over to find Rachel getting up on her elbows, lazy with sleep. Her hair's not quite what Chloe would consider A Mess, but its certainly messy for Rachel Amber and her eyes are still hazy with sleep as she asks, “What’s fucking gay?”   
  
“You.” Chloe says point blank.   
  
Rachel holds up one finger as if to contest and says, “Damn right.”   
  
Max’s laugh is still the dorkiest and cutest thing Chloe has ever heard.   
  
Rachel moves like liquid, bringing her hands up to cup Max’s face. “Can I kiss you?”   
  
“Uh-huh.” Max has been dating this woman for almost two years and she still sounds dumbstruck when she asks to kiss her.   
  
Chloe rolls her eyes and loosens her hold on Max. Rachel shifts forward a little more and presses her lips against Max’s. She can’t see it but Chloe knows the two of them well enough to know its soft and lazy, both of them excruciatingly careful with the other.   
  
If it weren’t Max and Rachel Chloe would be disgusted by how sweet they are.   
  
She leans over to kiss Rachel’s cheek when they part (and oh, how her seventeen year old self would be green with envy). Rachel’s too early in the morning giggle is different than her flirtatious usual giggle. Good different.   
  
She leans into Chloe’s kiss and tries to get a proper one when her girlfriend pulls back.   
  
“Greedy.” Chloe murmurs against her mouth.   
  
“The absolute worst.” Rachel agrees.   
  
Max laughs and wriggles in Chloe’s hold. “Hey, let me up. I gotta pee.”   
  
“Romantic.” Rachel snorts, flopping backwards.   
  
Chloe releases her girlfriend with a laugh. “What time is it anyway? Can we wake up?”   
  
“I can wake up anytime, I’m on vacation.” Rachel says smug as can be. She stretches out languidly, keeping her eyes on Chloe. An invitation if she’s ever seen one, but…   
  
“I have to work at nine.” Chloe glances at the time. If she falls asleep right now she could get a solid seven hours before rolling out of bed and yanking on whatever outfit she finds first (which is significantly harder to manage with three women in the same home because sometimes she’ll forget not everything is hers and realize half through a shift that she’s wearing her girlfriends’ clothes).   
  
Rachel pouts and _god dammit_ .   
  
Chloe really can’t be blamed for kissing that expression off her face. Or for admiring that Rachel wears a lacy bralette to bed and is an actual model.   
  
Chloe simultaneously has no idea and remembers in perfect clarity how she ends up straddling Rachel’s waist by the time Max returns from the bathroom. Their girlfriend’s snort laugh has the both of them looking up at her.   
  
“Really? A girl can’t pee without her girlfriends having a party?” She puts her hands on her hips and shakes her head.   
  
“You’re welcome to join.” Chloe suggests.   
  
Max does join them on the bed, but after a moment it becomes clear she’s not joining in. Max simply lays down next to them on her back, staring at the picture wall.   
  
Rachel purses her lips. “Fuck.”   
  
Chloe realizes that Rachel just figured out why the two of them were up so early. Why Max looks so exhausted.   
  
Max looks over curiously, “What?”   
  
She motions for Chloe to get off and she does, albeit rather reluctantly. On the one hand Max getting more emotional support and love its always, one hundred percent, totally fucking great. But on the other hand Chloe really wants to kiss her girlfriends. Both of them, preferably.   
  
Rachel shifts onto her stomach and lays half on top of Max, while Chloe settles on her other side, leaning up on one elbow.   
  
Rachel cradles Max’s face in her hand and asks, “Did you have another nightmare?”   
  
Max must’ve been in that weird emotional place where you’re okay right up until someone mentions it, because she bursts into tears. She hunches forward, into Rachel’s shoulder. Her fingers curl around the straps of Rachel’s bra to keep her close (she does the same thing with any type of top, although Rachel has scolded her time and time again for wrinkling things).   
  
“Oh god, sweetheart.” Rachel sighs, “Do you remember it this time? Would it help to talk it through?”   
  
“No, it was just. Me and Chloe in the Dark Room for the first time. When we found the photo albums and I saw _you_ .” Max is a pretty cryer compared to Chloe and Rachel, and while she brags about it sometimes, neither Rachel nor Chloe find her prettiness comforting when she’s sobbing.   
  
Chloe snakes an arm between their waists, pulling herself closer to the two of them and pressing her lips to Max’s shoulder.   
  
“ _Maxine Caulfield_ .” Rachel is the only one who can get away with using that name. Well, Chloe’s never felt compelled to try it. She likes “just Max.”   
  
“You listen to me,” Rachel says. “I’m not there. This variation of me has never been in the Dark Room, photogenically or otherwise, and that’s all thanks to you.”   
  
Words Max has heard a million times over the years. Words that she’ll probably need a million times more. There’s an odd sort of familiarity in listening to Rachel continue her “I Love Max So Fucking Much” speech and watching Max gradually calm.   
  
This was a Rachel dream so Rachel calms her best. Chloe dreams need Chloe, Max dreams need both of them and reassurances that this timeline is real, Victoria and/or Kate dreams need anxious video chats and the rest are uncommon enough that they don’t have a set pattern.   
  
Chloe gets little flashbacks sometimes, as do Vickie and Kate. Rachel doesn’t at all and the reminder why hurts hurts hurts but Chloe thinks herself lucky that Rachel believes them anyway. That Rachel so staunchly believes Max saved her life.   
  
Course, Chloe believes that too ( _she remembers a gun pressed up against her ribs and a butterfly the same color as her hair_ ).   
  
Max’s tears stop eventually, replaced with post cry sleepiness. She loosens her death grip on Rachel’s straps and leans closer to Chloe. “I love you.” She says sleepy and somehow steely. “So much.”   
  
“We love you too, Max.” Chloe laughs.   
  
“In every timeline.” Rachel adds, her smile sweet. “And when we wake up properly I’ll make… breakfast stir fry.”   
  
Max cracks a smile, “We’ve been dating forever and I’ve never seen you make stir fry., let alone of the breakfast variety.”   
  
“Forever implies I won’t get down on my knees and ask the both of you to marry me one of these days.” Chloe says, oh so purposefully casual.   
  
Neither of them disappoint, Rachel with her scandelized gasp and laughter and Max with her starstruck expression as she tilts her head to look at Chloe. “I’d say yes.” She says. “Always.”   
  
Never one to be outdone, Rachel declares, “I’d say yes too, but only if I get to wear a tux.”

  
Max raises her eyebrows at Chloe, “Are you also wearing a tux or will you do an ironic dresss?”   
  
“Tux for the ceremony, mini skirt for the afterparty.” Chloe lifts her leg up, as though to show off the definition despite the baggy sweatpants she’s got on. “Gotta show these off.”   
  
“Its not called an after… whatever.” Max bites down on her lip to keep from smiling. “I think I want a dress, but something that makes me look… sophisticated. I don’t want people calling me ‘kid’ at our wedding.”   
  
“You should do something backless, show off those freckles.” Rachel says, her eyes getting that faraway look she gets whenever she talks about her art. Max wears the same sort of face when she wants to takes a picture (and that’s _very often_ ).   
  
Chloe wonders how a joke about getting hitched turned into her girlfriends honestly planning this shit out, but she’s not really surprised either. She wriggles in closer to Max, closing her eyes. It’s easier to fall asleep when she can hear them anyway.   


* * *

  
Chloe wakes up to Rachel insistently poking her cheek. “Oh god, finally.” She says when Chloe squints at her. “It’s like eight o’clock you need to get up if we’re gonna get starbucks before work.”     
  
Chloe simply stares at her girlfriend and then at the empty space next to herself, where Max should definitely be after a night of bad dreams.   
  
Rachel’s lips tilt into a not quite there smile. “Max is at the store.” She explains.   
  
“Why?” Chloe slowly gets her to feet, stretching and grumbling all the while. She’ll go to the gym after work, try and wear herself out so she sleeps better.   
  
“We ran out of cereal. And by that I mean I ate all of it.” Rachel sits down in the warm space Chloe left, watching her try and find a good outfit.   
  
“Why do you eat the cereal if you don’t like it?”   
  
“The cronch.” She snaps her teeth together to make a point.   
  
Chloe is too exhausted to tease her about age old memes, but she does laugh. “Red or black?”   
  
“You always look better in black.” Rachel hums.   
  
Chloe nods to herself in agreement. Rachel turns on music while she gets dressed and sings along quiet and sweet. Chloe might be biased but she thinks Rachel could be a singer if she wanted to. And Max could be a PI, what with her inquisitiveness and her time traveling bullshit. Chloe could be her bodyguard.   
  
Chloe figures there’s nothing else to do until Max gets back and throws herself across Rachel’s lap, stretching her arms out above her head. Rachel doesn’t even pause in her singing (although her words get a little distorted with laughter).   
  
“Love you.” Chloe says.   
  
Rachel’s voice warbles but she’s nothing if not committed.   
  
Three songs go by before Max returns. She’s quiet as ever, but the bags rustle as she sets them down.   
  
Chloe tilts her face back and keeps her eyes on the door.   
  
Max appears with a bowl of cereal in her hands (upside down in Chloe’s eyes) and a smug grin on her face. “I found coupons in my purse so I got poptarts too.” She declares.   
  
“Oh, fuck yeah,” Chloe cheers.   
  
“Fuck yeah poptarts or fuck yeah coupons?” Rachel asks curiously.   
  
“The coupons led to the poptarts.” Max offers and she sits on Chloe’s feet. She barely resists the urge to wiggle her toes. “So both?”   
  
“I’m nodding.” Rachel says, clearly realizing neither of her girlfriends are looking at her.   
  
Max hums an acknowledgement around a bite of cereal and Chloe pats Rachel’s stomach comfortingly. Rachel threads their fingers together in return. It’s a regular old cuddle puddle.   
  
They stay like that for as long as possible, right up until Chloe has to yank her boots on. Max tries to kiss her as she does so, and they knock their teeth together uncomfortably (and Chloe recalls their first kiss in front of her closest, when she dared Max).   
  
“Come back home safe!” Rachel calls, winding her arms around Max’s middle.   
  
“Yeah, love you.” Chloe is not blushing. She can feel it on her face but she’s _not_ .   
  
Max’s grin tells her she’s not fooling anyone. “I do love you.”


End file.
